Field Care?

[exophysical]

I've been shooting my Hawken for a while now, but only recently started hunting with it, and I've got some questions. At the end of the day I usually fire the load out of my gun, if I am going hunting again the next day how much of a cleaning does it need? What if I were to use it for a week straight, how much gun maintenance am I going to have to do to it?

In the future I would like to start using it for extended hike in/ paddle in wilderness hunts for up to 10 days at a time, what kind of attention and maintenance do I need to plan for to keep my Hawken in good shape and working reliably? In a hard hunting situation, where I want to spend all my daylight hours hunting and all my night time hours sleeping, what can I get away with, and for how long.

 

[plinker 777]

Why do you shoot out the load? A sidelock isn't considered "loaded/chambered" unless a cap is on the nipple as far as hunting regs in Ont. are concerned. Alberta may be different, but I doubt it.
Load the Hawken as normal, then run a heavy greased (bore butter) patch w/ jag up and down the rifling on top of the load so the barrel won't rust as easily and you're GTG for days, weeks, months, years...decades...centuries. So long as it's dry, it'll fire.
Myself, I don't want to become habituated to being comfortable with a potential in the house...hunt camp, no problem. Keep it out of the fire pit/ stove.